CANCELLED – Bronfman Plays Beethoven

CANCELLED – Bronfman Plays Beethoven

We are committed to the health and well-being of our staff, musicians, volunteers and patrons. In the best interests of all and using guidance from government and public health authorities regarding COVID-19, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra is cancelling these concerts at this time. Learn more here about ticketing options.

An incomparable finale

Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4Bruckner: Symphony No. 7

It took Beethoven four years to compose, and yet it remains one of his most seamless, most poetic works. Yefim Bronfman plays Beethoven’s poetic Fourth Piano Concerto. “A virtuoso with chops that defy comparison,” raves The New York Times. “Brings to mind stories of the young Rubinstein,” says the Washington Post. Also, Music Director Manfred Honeck concludes this Pittsburgh Symphony season with Anton Bruckner’s vast symphonic landscape, the Seventh Symphony.

Manfred Honeck

conductor

Manfred Honeck has firmly established himself as one of the world's leading conductors, whose unmistakable and trend-setting interpretations are receiving great international acclaim. For more than a decade, he has been Music Director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, where his contract will run until 2022. He and the orchestra are celebrated both in Pittsburgh and abroad. Guest appearances regularly include Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York, as well as major European music cities and major festivals such as the BBC Proms, the Berlin Music Festival, the Lucerne Festival, the Rheingau Music Festival, the Beethovenfest Bonn and the Grafenegg Festival. The close relationship with the Musikverein in Vienna will be continued in autumn 2019 as part of the next major tour of European cities

His successful work in Pittsburgh is extensively documented by numerous recordings for the label Reference Recordings. All SACDs featuring works by Strauss, Beethoven, Bruckner, Tchaikovsky and others have received a number of outstanding reviews and awards, including a number of Grammy nominations. The recording of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5 and Barber's Adagio won the GRAMMY for "Best Orchestral Performance" in 2018. Most recently, Bruckner's Symphony No. 9 was published in August 2019.

Born in Austria, he completed his musical education at the University of Music in Vienna. His many years of experience as a member of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and of the Vienna State Opera Orchestra have had a lasting influence on his work as a conductor. His art of interpretation is based on his determination to venture deep beneath the surface of the music. Manfred Honeck began his career as assistant to Claudio Abbado in Vienna and as director of the Jeunesses Musicales Orchestra Vienna. He then became the first Kapellmeister to the Zurich Opera House, where he was awarded the European Conducting Prize in 1993. He has since served as one of the three principal conductors of the MDR Symphony Orchestra Leipzig, as Musical Director of the Norwegian National Opera, as First Guest Conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra and the Czech Philharmonic, and Chief Conductor of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Stockholm.

From 2007 to 2011 Manfred Honeck was Music Director of the Stuttgart State Opera. There he conducted, among others, premieres of Berlioz ' Les Troyens , Mozart's Idomeneo, Verdi's Aida, Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmélites, Rosenkavalier by R. Strauss, the bat by Johann Strauss, and Wagner's Lohengrin and Parsifal. Performances in opera led him to the Semperoper Dresden, the Komische Oper Berlin, the Royal Opera in Copenhagen, the White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg and the Salzburg Festival. In the Beethoven anniversary year 2020 he will take over the musical direction of the new staging of Fidelio in the version of 1806 at the Theater an der Wien. On the other side of the conductor's podium, Manfred Honeck has designed a series of symphonic suites based on scenic works, including Janáček's Jenůfa , Strauss' Elektra and Dvořák's Rusalka. These arrangements, all of which he recorded with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, are also performed regularly with orchestras around the world.

As a guest conductor, Manfred Honeck has been at the podium of all leading international orchestras, including the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, the Bamberger Symphoniker, the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Orchester de Paris, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia Rome and the Vienna Philharmonic; in the United States, he has directed the Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, The Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra and San Francisco Symphony. He has also been Artistic Director of the International Wolfegger Concerts for twenty-five years. Manfred Honeck has been honored by several universities in the United States as an honorary doctorate. On behalf of the Austrian Federal President, he was honored in 2016 with the professional title Professor. The jury of the International Classical Music Awards awarded him "Artist of the Year" in 2018.

Season 2019/2020 (August 2019)

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Yefim Bronfman

piano

Internationally recognized as one of today's most acclaimed and admired pianists, Yefim Bronfman stands among a handful of artists regularly sought by festivals, orchestras, conductors and recital series. His commanding technique, power and exceptional lyrical gifts are consistently acknowledged by the press and audiences alike.

As guest soloist with the Cleveland Orchestra and Franz Welzer-Möst, Mr. Bronfman will participate in the opening concerts of Carnegie Hall’s 2019-2020 season followed immediately by the inauguration of a season-long Artist-in –Residence project with the Vienna Symphony in both the Musikverein and Konzerthaus. During the fall he also participates in farewell concerts for Zubin Mehta in Tel Aviv with the Israel Philharmonic, Japan with the Vienna Philharmonic and Andrés Orozco-Estrada as well as season opening events in Houston, Seattle and Rhode Island. The second half of the season will see return visits to orchestras in Hamburg, Munich, New York, Montreal, Philadelphia, Cleveland, San Diego, Madison, Portland, Indianapolis, San Antonio, Pittsburgh and Boston with whom he will also tour in Korea, Hong Kong and China. In recital he can be heard celebrating Beethoven’s 250th in Berlin, Toronto, Denver, Santa Fe, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Detroit, Kalamazoo and Carnegie Hall.

Mr. Bronfman works regularly with an illustrious group of conductors, including Daniel Barenboim, Herbert Blomstedt, Semyon Bychkov, Riccardo Chailly, Christoph von Dohnányi, Gustavo Dudamel, Charles Dutoit, Daniele Gatti, Valery Gergiev, Alan Gilbert, Mariss Jansons, Vladimir Jurowski, James Levine, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, Andris Nelsons, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Sir Simon Rattle, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Jaap Van Zweden, Franz Welser-Möst, and David Zinman. Summer engagements have regularly taken him to the major festivals of Europe and the US. Always keen to explore chamber music repertoire, his partners have included Pinchas Zukerman, Martha Argerich, Magdalena Kožená, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Emmanuel Pahud and many others. In 1991 he gave a series of joint recitals with Isaac Stern in Russia, marking Mr. Bronfman's first public performances there since his emigration to Israel at age 15.

Widely praised for his solo, chamber and orchestral recordings, Mr. Bronfman has been nominated for 6 GRAMMY® Awards, winning in 1997 with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic for their recording of the three Bartok Piano Concerti. His prolific catalog of recordings includes works for two pianos by Rachmaninoff and Brahms with Emanuel Ax, the complete Prokofiev concerti with the Israel Philharmonic and Zubin Mehta, a Schubert/Mozart disc with the Zukerman Chamber Players and the soundtrack to Disney's Fantasia 2000. His most recent CD releases are the 2014 GRAMMY® nominated Magnus Lindberg's Piano Concerto No. 2 commissioned for him and performed by the New York Philharmonic conducted by Alan Gilbert on the Da Capo label; Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No.1 with Mariss Jansons and the Bayerischer Rundfunk; a recital disc, Perspectives, complementing Mr. Bronfman's designation as a Carnegie Hall ‘Perspectives' artist for the 2007-08 season; and recordings of all the Beethoven piano concerti as well as the Triple Concerto together with violinist Gil Shaham, cellist Truls Mørk, and the Tönhalle Orchestra Zürich under David Zinman for the Arte Nova/BMG label. Now available on DVD are his performances of Liszt's second piano concerto with Franz Welser-Möst and the Vienna Philharmonic from Schoenbrunn, 2010 on Deutsche Grammophon; Beethoven's fifth piano concerto with Andris Nelsons and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra from the 2011 Lucerne Festival; Rachmaninoff's third concerto with the Berlin Philharmonic and Sir Simon Rattle on the EuroArts label and both Brahms Concerti with Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra (2015).

Born in Tashkent in the Soviet Union, Yefim Bronfman immigrated to Israel with his family in 1973, where he studied with pianist Arie Vardi, head of the Rubin Academy of Music at Tel Aviv University. In the United States, he studied at The Juilliard School, Marlboro School of Music, and the Curtis Institute of Music, under Rudolf Firkusny, Leon Fleisher, and Rudolf Serkin. A recipient of the prestigious Avery Fisher Prize, one of the highest honors given to American instrumentalists, in 2010 he was further honored as the recipient of the Jean Gimbel Lane prize in piano performance from Northwestern University and in 2015 with an honorary doctorate from the Manhattan School of Music.